LATASA vs.

COMELEC Petition: A petition for certiorari under Rule 65 of the Rules of Court which seeks to challenge the resolution issued by the First Division of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) dated April 27, 2001 in SPA Case No. 01-059 entitled, Romeo M. Sunga, Petitioner, versus Arsenio A. Latasa, respondent, and the Resolution of the COMELEC en banc denying herein petitioners Motion for Reconsideration. The assailed Resolution denied due course to the certificate of candidacy of petitioner Arsenio A. Latasa, declaring him disqualified to run for mayor of Digos City, Davao del Sur Province in the May 14, 2001 elections, ordering that all votes cast in his favor shall not be counted, and if he has been proclaimed winner, declaring said proclamation null and void. Ruling: DISMISSED FACTS: Petitioner Arsenio A. Latasa, was elected mayor of the Municipality of Digos, Davao del Sur in the elections of 1992, 1995, and 1998. During petitioners third term, the Municipality of Digos was declared a component city, to be known as the City of Digos. A plebiscite conducted on September 8, 2000 ratified Republic Act No. 8798 entitled, An Act Converting the Municipality of Digos, Davao del Sur Province into a Component City to be known as the City of Digos or the Charter of the City of Digos. This event also marked the end of petitioners tenure as mayor of the Municipality of Digos. However, under Section 53, Article IX of the Charter, petitioner was mandated to serve in a hold-over capacity as mayor of the new City of Digos. Hence, he took his oath as the city mayor. On February 28, 2001, petitioner filed his certificate of candidacy for city mayor for the May 14, 2001 elections. He stated therein that he is eligible therefor, and likewise disclosed that he had already served for three consecutive terms as mayor of the Municipality of Digos and is now running for the first time for the position of city mayor. On March 1, 2001, private respondent Romeo M. Sunga, also a candidate for city mayor in the said elections, filed before the COMELEC a Petition to Deny Due Course, Cancel Certificate of Candidacy and/ or For Disqualification against petitioner Latasa. Respondent Sunga alleged therein that petitioner falsely represented in his certificate of candidacy that he is eligible to run as mayor of Digos City since petitioner had already been elected and served for three consecutive terms as mayor from 1992 to 2001.chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary On March 5, 2001, petitioner Latasa filed his answer, arguing that he did not make any false representation in his certificate of candidacy since he fully disclosed therein that he had served as mayor of the Municipality of Digos for three consecutive terms. Moreover, he argued that this fact does not bar him from filing a certificate of candidacy for the May 14, 2001 elections since this will be the first time that he will be running for the post of city mayor.chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary Both parties submitted their position papers on March 19, 2001. On April 27, 2001, respondent COMELECs First Division issued a Resolution, the dispositive portion of which reads, as follows:chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary Wherefore, premises considered, the respondents certificate of candidacy should be cancelled for being a violation of the three (3)-term rule proscribed by the 1987 Constitution and the Local Government Code of 1991. Petitioner filed his Motion for Reconsideration dated May 4, 2001,which remained unacted upon until the day of the elections, May 14, 2001. On May 16, 2001, private respondent Sunga filed an Ex Parte Motion for Issuance of Temporary Restraining Order Enjoining the City Board of Canvassers From Canvassing or Tabulating Respondents Votes, and From Proclaiming Him as the Duly Elected Mayor if He Wins the Elections.[6] Despite this, however, petitioner Latasa was still proclaimed winner on May 17, 2001, having garnered the most number of votes. Consequently, private respondent Sunga filed, on May 27, 2001, a Supplemental Motion[7] which essentially sought the annulment of petitioners proclamation and

the suspension of its effects.chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary On July 1, 2001, petitioner was sworn into and assumed his office as the newly elected mayor of Digos City. It was only on August 27, 2002 that the COMELEC en banc issued a Resolution denying petitioners Motion for Reconsideration. chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary ISSUE :whether or not petitioner Latasa is eligible to run as candidate for the position of mayor of the newly-created City of Digos immediately after he served for three consecutive terms as mayor of the Municipality of Digos. HELD: As a rule, in a representative democracy, the people should be allowed freely to choose those who will govern them. Article X, Section 8 of the Constitution is an exception to this rule, in that it limits the range of choice of the people. Section 8. The term of office of elective local officials, except barangay officials, which shall be determined by law, shall be three years and no such official shall serve for more than three consecutive terms. Voluntary renunciation of the office for any length of time shall not be considered as an interruption in the continuity of his service for the full term for which he was elected. An elective local official, therefore, is not barred from running again in for same local government post, unless two conditions concur: 1.) that the official concerned has been elected for three consecutive terms to the same local government post, and 2.) that he has fully served three consecutive terms. In the present case, petitioner states that a city and a municipality have separate and distinct personalities. Thus they cannot be treated as a single entity and must be accorded different treatment consistent with specific provisions of the Local Government Code. He does not deny the fact that he has already served for three consecutive terms as municipal mayor. However, he asserts that when Digos was converted from a municipality to a city, it attained a different juridical personality. Therefore, when he filed his certificate of candidacy for city mayor, he cannot be construed as vying for the same local government post As seen in the aforementioned provisions (Section 450 (Requisites for Creation), Sec 7 (Creation and Conversion) of the Local Government Code and Sections 2 and 53 of the Charter of the City of Digos), the Court noted that the delineation of the metes and bounds of the City of Digos did not change even by an inch the land area previously covered by the Municipality of Digos. This Court also notes that the elective officials of the Municipality of Digos continued to exercise their powers and functions until elections were held for the new city officials. True, the new city acquired a new corporate existence separate and distinct from that of the municipality. This does not mean, however, that for the purpose of applying the subject Constitutional provision, the office of the municipal mayor would now be construed as a different local government post as that of the office of the city mayor. As stated earlier, the territorial jurisdiction of the City of Digos is the same as that of the municipality. Consequently, the inhabitants of the municipality are the same as those in the city. These inhabitants are the same group of voters who elected petitioner Latasa to be their municipal mayor for three consecutive terms. These are also the same inhabitants over whom he held power and authority as their chief executive for nine years.chanroblesvirtuallawlibrary It is evident that in the cases of Borja, Jr. v. COMELEC, Socrates vs COMELEC, Lonzanida vs COMELEC, and Adormeo vs. COMELEC, there exists a rest period or a break in the service of the local elective official. In Lonzanida, petitioner therein was a private citizen a few months before the next mayoral elections. Similarly, in Adormeo and Socrates, the private respondents therein lived as private citizens for two years and fifteen months respectively. Indeed, the law contemplates a rest period during which the local elective official steps down from office and ceases to exercise power or authority over the inhabitants of the

territorial jurisdiction of a particular local government unit. This Court reiterates that the framers of the Constitution specifically included an exception to the peoples freedom to choose those who will govern them in order to avoid the evil of a single person accumulating excessive power over a particular territorial jurisdiction as a result of a prolonged stay in the same office. To allow petitioner Latasa to vie for the position of city mayor after having served for three consecutive terms as a municipal mayor would obviously defeat the very intent of the framers when they wrote this exception. Should he be allowed another three consecutive terms as mayor of the City of Digos, petitioner would then be possibly holding office as chief executive over the same territorial jurisdiction and inhabitants for a total of eighteen consecutive years. This is the very scenario sought to be avoided by the Constitution, if not abhorred by it.